01
Aug 2010
Posted by Michelle LaPointe
0 comments

Update: New Study Shows Twitter Fails for Marketers

Two short weeks ago, I wrote that 80% of marketers probably don’t need Twitter. I may have been wrong by an order of magnitude.

Bye, bye, Bluebird?

As Ad Age reported on July 27, “a six-month analysis of the service’s ubiquitous 140-character messages conducted by digital agency 360i” confirmed an advertiser’s deepest fears: they’re not talking about your brand on Twitter.

In fact, they’re not talking about any brands on Twitter. Well, a few, in order: Twitter, Apple, Google, YouTube, Microsoft, Blackberry,… Read more –>

Posted in: branding, marketing, social media

15
Jul 2010
Posted by Michelle LaPointe
1 comment

Do You Need To Be On Twitter?

If you’re like 80% of businesses, you can safely  ignore the cute little bird. Here’s why.

Twitter Bluebird of Happiness

I got a chance to catch up with my friend Marti Barletta last week. It was delightful, as always, and fun to catch up on news of our lives, work, and families. But when the talk came around to marketing, Marti shared two astonishing bits of information.

  1. She is now among the top .05% of Tweeters in terms of followers.
  2. She has just over 700 followers.

You read that right, and because you can do math, you know… Read more –>

Posted in: marketing, social media

08
Jul 2010
Posted by Michelle LaPointe
1 comment

Should You Be On Facebook?

Smashing Magazine had a very useful posting yesterday on how to create effective fan pages on Facebook. It turns out that creating an effective Facebook fan page takes just as much effort, design sense, good copywriting, and marketing savvy as any other advertising effort. Most of all, like the “real” web, an effective Facebook fan page also takes carefully crafted content with a high perceived value.

To that I say: duh. Too bad, but, duh.

(What’s a “fan page”? Unlike the U.S. Supreme Court, Facebook believes that people are different from business entities. This means that your business can have a… Read more –>

Posted in: marketing, social media

07
Jul 2010
Posted by Michelle LaPointe
0 comments

3 Lessons from the $500 Solution, Part 3

I recently wrote about how a one-time investment of $500 could help computer companies — and Adobe — sell thousands more units this year. What follows is a summary of the lessons all organizations can learn form that industry’s mistakes.

Lesson #3: Don’t dismiss a niche market.

The most expensive pronouncements in the world start like this: “____________________ are not our core customers, and we only market to our core customers.”

My reaction to this is always the same:  ”Really? What is it about money that you don’t like?”

I agree that you shouldn’t be distracted from talking  to your core customers… Read more –>

Posted in: marketing

06
Jul 2010
Posted by Michelle LaPointe
0 comments

3 Lessons From the $500 Solution, Part 2

I recently wrote about how a one-time investment of $500 could help computer companies — and Adobe — sell thousands more units this year.  What follows is a summary of the lessons all organizations can learn form that industry’s mistakes.

Lesson #2: There’s no substitute for continual, meaningful communication within your organization.

You can put down your Blackberries and iPhones and stop updating your Twitter feed for a moment. I’m not talking about constantly touching base. I’m talking about serious, focused, intense sharing about who your customers are and how they use your products and services.

I encourage all my… Read more –>

Posted in: marketing

28
Jun 2010
Posted by Michelle LaPointe
0 comments

3 Lessons From the $500 Solution

Last week I wrote about how a one-time investment of $500 could help computer companies — and Adobe — sell thousands more units this year.  What follows is a summary of the lessons all organizations can learn form that industry’s mistakes.

Lesson #1:  There’s no substitute for putting your customers first

It’s especially dangerous when you spend more time obsessing over your competition than you do thinking about your customers.

The bad blood between Adobe and Apple is a perfect example how this mistake can hurt sales. “Us vs. them” thinking can quickly permeate an entire organization, especially when your… Read more –>

Posted in: Uncategorized

17
Jun 2010
Posted by Michelle LaPointe
0 comments

The $500 Solution

What if I told you that you could move tens of thousands of units this year — perhaps hundreds of thousands — for a one-time investment of $500? Would you do it?

Posted in: Uncategorized